Details disclosed in this section merely offers background information regarding embodiments of the present invention. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the below might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.
With the remarkable development of a mobile communication network and related technologies, today's mobile communication devices have outgrown a typical category of simple communication devices or information providing devices and are now evolving into total entertainment devices.
Such a mobile communication device often has a function of short range communication such as NFC (Near Field Communication) or Bluetooth as well as a traditional communication function using a mobile communication network.
By the way, NFC covers a relatively narrower communication range and needs an additional wireless chip, whereas Bluetooth covers a relatively wider communication range and is inherently applied to most of recent mobile communication devices. In addition, a great variety of communication services using Bluetooth are developed and launched.
Meanwhile, a new service for offering various kinds of information to a user's mobile device by utilizing a beacon based on Bluetooth communication is being developed and studied.
For example, a beacon-based content provision service is used. This service is based on a beacon device installed in a store. The beacon device emits a periodic signal by using an electromagnetic wave or sound and thereby triggers a specific application of a neighboring mobile communication device. Using this service, content providers may provide a great variety of contents associated with publicity, advertisement, finance, banking, payment, game, and the like.
However, in this beacon-based service, a user's terminal device (i.e., a mobile communication device) offers particular service contents corresponding to a beacon signal to a user regardless of user's intention whenever recognizing the beacon signal. Namely, undesired notifications regarding a beacon service are frequently offered to a user by means of a push message, and this may often draw a user's unwelcome attention to a beacon service.
In order to obviate such inconvenience, a user can enter a setting menu or page of an application for providing a beacon service and then set the beacon service unavailable. However, in this case, a user will not receive any content, even desired content, any more.
Accordingly, required is a technique to selectively provide only user's desired content in a beacon service when a user's terminal device detects a beacon signal.